FRANCE
Production drops 0.8%
Industrial production dropped for a second straight month in June, statistics bureau Insee said yesterday. Output fell 0.8 percent, after dropping 0.5 percent in May, with oil refining posting the largest single decline after strikes in the oil industry. Connor Campbell, an analyst at Spreadex, called the latest reading “alarming” and “far worse” than the May drop and the 0.3 percent increase that economists had been expecting for June. Manufacturing output alone fell 1.2 percent after a revised 0.1 percent increase the previous month.
UTILITIES
EON SE reports first-half loss
German energy giant EON SE yesterday reported 3 billion euros (US$3.34 billion) in losses over the first half of the year as it wrote down the value of traditional power infrastructure. EON subsidiary Uniper, which brings together the firm’s non-renewable power operations, booked provisions and impairment charges on its power plants and gas storage facilities totaling 3.8 billion euros. That weighed on the group as a whole, which reported underlying profit as measured by earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 2.9 billion euros — down 12 percent on the same period last year — on revenue of 20.25 billion euros.
COMMODITIES
HKEx slump continues
Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd (HKEx) said earnings from its commodities business — primarily the London Metal Exchange — extended a first-half slump as the world’s biggest metals bourse battles lower trading volumes. The unit’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization fell 19 percent to HK$513 million (US$66 million) in the six months to June, from HK$632 million a year, for their second consecutive decline over the half-year period. The HKEx’s first-half earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization across all its businesses, including equities and derivatives trading, fell 25 percent.
CONSTRUCTION
Interserve to downscale
Interserve PLC, a British construction and support services company, said it would exit its energy-from-waste business, after it took a £70 million (US$91 million) charge in the first half from cost overruns and delays in a contract in Glasgow, Scotland. The company, whose activities range from providing care services for people in their own homes to building repairs at Britain’s historic Sandhurst military academy, said the business has six contracts with total whole-life revenue of £430 million. Interserve said it expects to complete these contracts next year and the impact of these contracts would be contained within the previously announced charge.
TRANSPORTATION
Eurostar workers plan strike
Workers on Eurostar trains that operate across the English Channel are planning seven days of strikes over two weekends this month — a peak summer tourist time. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers yesterday said that starting tomorrow, its members will stop work for four days. A second stoppage is planned for three days starting on Aug. 27, which is the start of a bank holiday long weekend in Britain. The union yesterday said that Eurostar has failed to honor a 2008 agreement to reduce the number of unsocial hours that staff are required to work. It was not immediately clear what impact the strike would have on Eurostar’s operations.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last